1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to improved virtual modeling of merchandise and in particular to virtually rendering a consumer representation wearing at least one merchandise item, where the consumer representation is based on both a video stream capturing the consumer image and sizing measurements and modeling from a body scan of the consumer's body shape.
2. Description of the Related Art
The global apparel market is a major industry, but even with the numerous clothing merchandise options available many shoppers have difficulty finding merchandise that fits. Many shoppers, in an effort to save time, turn to online shopping. Online shopping, however, still suffers from the same problems as catalog shopping and even in-store shopping—a large percentage of merchandise purchased by consumers is then returned to the merchant by consumers because of poor fit. Further, the lack of information about “fit” available from online merchants keeps many consumers from making purchases online or even attempting to shop for wearable merchandise online.
Some online stores, in an effort to aid the shopper in predicting an appearance and fit of a merchandise item will provide multiple photographs of the merchandise item, from different angles, as worn by a mannequin or live model. Other online stores display merchandise items on a generic three dimensional graphical model, where the user can select to adjust different parameters of the generic looking three dimensional graphical model with a static pose and select to rotate the entire generic looking three dimensional graphical model to view the merchandise item as worn from different angles, but with the same pose.
While current photos or generic three dimensional models provide some information about the appearance and fit of a merchandise item, these generic images do not reflect how a merchandise item would actually fit on a consumer or how a merchandise item would change in appearance and fit responsive to movement while worn by the consumer. For example, when a merchandise item is actually tried on by a consumer, the appearance and fit of the merchandise item will adjust responsive to movement depending on the characteristics of the material, such as drape, smoothness, texture and stretch, and responsive to how the garment actually fits on the body shape of the consumer. Further, when a merchandise item is actually tried on by the consumer, shape modifying garments worn under a merchandise item by the consumer will change the appearance and fit of the merchandise item whether the consumer is standing still or moving.
In another example of using technology to help consumers find clothing that may fit, Intellifit (Intellifit is a registered trademark of Intellifit Corporation) has developed a scanning system that is placed in shopping areas and uses low-power radio waves that reflect off a person's skin to detect thousands of data points. From the data points, the system determines a set of metric body measurements for the consumer and provides the consumer with a selection of merchandise items that may fit the consumer, where the merchandise items are selected from merchants partnering with Intellifit in the shopping area. While suggesting a selection of merchandise items from partnering merchants that may “fit” based on metric body measurements may reduce the consumer's time in searching for clothing with a potential to fit the consumer at those merchants, the static body measurement scanning system is still limited to metric body measurement matching alone; the consumer is not provided with information about how the merchandise item will actually appear on or fit the consumer, without the consumer trying on the merchandise item, or about how the merchandise item will appear or fit whether the consumer is standing or sitting or responsive to other movement. Further, the Intellifit system is limited because consumers are limited to receiving clothing suggestions only from those merchants partnering with Intellifit.
Clearly, in view of the foregoing, it is apparent that for a consumer to truly experience a simulated dressing room, there is a need for a method, system, and program to enable a consumer to see a modeling of merchandise on a model based exactly on the consumer in outer appearance and movement. In addition, there is a need to select merchandise items to model on the virtual, three dimensional consumer representation and to provide the virtual, three dimensional consumer representation, whether previously built and stored or captured and built in real time, for access by consumers, vendors, and third party services to model the selected merchandise items in different environments. Further, in selecting merchandise items to model, there is a need to determine “fit” based not only on body scan measurements and merchandise measurements, but also based on how the merchandise item will be worn, such as in layers, how each particular consumer defines fit and how a designer designed a merchandise item to fit.